8/28/2019 Jim Mattis: Duty, Democracy and the Threat of Tribalism - WSJ

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THE SATURDAY ESSAY

Jim Mattis: Duty, Democracy and the Threat of

Tribalism
Lessons in leadership from a lifetime of service, from ighting in the Marines Corps to working for
President Donald Trump

By Jim Mattis
Updated Aug. 28, 2019 8 43 am ET

In late November 2016, I was enjoying Thanksgiving break in my hometown on the Columbia
River in Washington state when I received an unexpected call from Vice President-elect Mike
Pence. Would I meet with President-elect Donald Trump to discuss the job of secretary of
defense?

I had taken no part in the election campaign and had never met or spoken to Mr. Trump, so to
say that I was surprised is an understatement. Further, I knew that, absent a congressional
waiver, federal law prohibited a former military officer from serving as secretary of defense
within seven years of departing military service. Given that no wavier had been authorized
since Gen. George Marshall was made secretary in 1950, and I’d been out for only 3½ years, I
doubted I was a viable candidate. Nonetheless, I felt I should go to Bedminster, N.J., for the
interview.

I had time on the cross-country flight to ponder how to encapsulate my view of America’s role in
the world. On my flight out of Denver, the flight attendant’s standard safety briefing caught my
attention: If cabin pressure is lost, masks will fall…Put your own mask on first, then help others
around you. In that moment, those familiar words seemed like a metaphor: To preserve our
leadership role, we needed to get our own country’s act together first, especially if we were to
help others.

The next day, I was driven to the Trump National Golf Club and, entering a side door, waited
about 20 minutes before I was ushered into a modest conference room. I was introduced to the
president-elect, the vice president-elect, the incoming White House chief of staff and a handful

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of others. We talked about the state of our military, where our views aligned and where they
differed. Mr. Trump led the wide-ranging, 40-minute discussion, and the tone was amiable.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Marine Maj. Gen. Jim Mattis (second right) confers with his sta , on the
amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu in the Arabian Sea, Nov. 24, 2001. From left to right are Sgt. Tony Eatkins, Cpl. Chris
Salgado, Lance Cpl. Jason Jakoubek, Gen. Mattis and 1st Lt. Warren Cook. PHOTO: JIM HOLLANDER ASSOCIATED PRESS

Afterward, the president-elect escorted me out to the front steps of the colonnaded clubhouse,
where the press was gathered. I assumed that I would be on my way back to Stanford
University’s Hoover Institution, where I’d spent the past few years doing research. I figured
that my strong support of NATO and my dismissal of the use of torture on prisoners would have
the president-elect looking for another candidate.

Standing beside him on the steps as photographers snapped away, I was surprised for the
second time that week when he characterized me to the reporters as “the real deal.” Days later,
I was formally nominated.

During the interview, Mr. Trump had asked me if I could do the job. I said I could. I’d never
aspired to be secretary of defense and took the opportunity to suggest several other candidates
I thought highly capable. Still, having been raised by the Greatest Generation, by two parents
who had served in World War II, and subsequently shaped by more than four decades in the
Marine Corps, I considered government service to be both honor and duty. When the president
asks you to do something, you don’t play Hamlet on the wall, wringing your hands. To quote a
great American company’s slogan, you “just do it.” So long as you are prepared, you say yes.

When it comes to the defense of our experiment in democracy and our way of life, ideology
should have nothing to do with it. Whether asked to serve by a Democratic or a Republican, you
serve. “Politics ends at the water’s edge”: That ethos has shaped and defined me, and I wasn’t
going to betray it, no matter how much I was enjoying my life west of the Rockies and spending
time with a family I had neglected during my 40-plus years in the Marines.

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Gen. Jim Mattis, the head of U.S. Central Command, takes questions after delivering a lecture to the British think tank Policy
Exchange, London, Feb. 1, 2011. PHOTO: MATT DUNHAM ASSOCIATED PRESS

When I said I could do the job, I meant I felt prepared. I knew the job intimately. In the late
1990s, I had served as the executive secretary to two secretaries of defense, William Perry and
William Cohen. In close quarters, I had gained a personal grasp of the immensity and gravity of
a “secdef’s” responsibilities. The job is tough: Our first secretary of defense, James Forrestal,
committed suicide, and few have emerged from the job unscathed, either legally or politically.

We were at war, amid the longest continuous stretch of armed conflict in our nation’s history.
I’d signed enough letters to next of kin about the death of a loved one to understand the
consequences of leading a department on a war footing when the rest of the country was not.
The Department of Defense’s millions of devoted troops and civilians spread around the world
carried out their mission with a budget larger than the GDPs of all but two dozen countries.

On a personal level, I had no great desire to return to Washington, D.C. I drew no energy from
the turmoil and politics that animate our capital. Yet I didn’t feel overwhelmed by the job’s
immensities. I also felt confident that I could gain bipartisan support for the Department of
Defense despite the political fratricide practiced in Washington.

My career in the Marines brought me

In the Marine Corps, amateur performance is anathema.
to that moment and prepared me to
say yes to a job of that magnitude. The
Marines teach you, above all, how to adapt, improvise and overcome. But they expect you to
have done your homework, to have mastered your profession. Amateur performance is
anathema.

The Marines are bluntly critical of falling short, satisfied only with 100% effort and
commitment. Yet over the course of my career, every time I made a mistake—and I made many
—the Marines promoted me. They recognized that these mistakes were part of my tuition and a

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necessary bridge to learning how to do things right. Year in and year out, the Marines had
trained me in skills they knew I needed, while educating me to deal with the unexpected.

Beneath its Prussian exterior of short haircuts, crisp uniforms and exacting standards, the
Corps nurtured some of the strangest mavericks and most original thinkers I encountered in
my journey through multiple commands and dozens of countries. The Marines’ military
excellence does not suffocate intellectual freedom or substitute regimented dogma for
imaginative solutions. They know their doctrine, often derived from lessons learned in combat
and written in blood, but refuse to let that turn into dogma.

Woe to the unimaginative one who, in after-action reviews, takes refuge in doctrine. The
critiques in the field, in the classroom or at happy hour are blunt for good reasons. Personal
sensitivities are irrelevant. No effort is made to ease you through your midlife crisis when
peers, seniors or subordinates offer more cunning or historically proven options, even when out
of step with doctrine.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis looks out over Kabul as he arrives via helicopter at the headquarters of NATO’s Resolute
Support training mission, Afghanistan, April 24, 2017. PHOTO: JONATHAN ERNST REUTERS

In any organization, it’s all about selecting the right team. The two qualities I was taught to
value most were initiative and aggressiveness. Institutions get the behaviors they reward.

During my monthlong preparation for my Senate confirmation hearings, I read many excellent
intelligence briefings. I was struck by the degree to which our competitive military edge was
eroding, including our technological advantage. We would have to focus on regaining the edge.

I had been fighting terrorism in the Middle East during my last decade of military service.
During that time, and in the three years since I had left active duty, haphazard funding had
significantly worsened the situation, doing more damage to our current and future military
readiness than any enemy in the field.

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I could see that the

THE 26TH SECRETARY OF DEFENSE background drummed into
me as a Marine would
•Mattis to Depart as Defense Chief Over Troop Withdrawals From Syria and Afghanistan need to be adapted to fit
•Mattis, Blindsided by Trump’s Syria Decision, Resigned Days Later my role as a civilian
•Mattis Warns of Consequences If Beijing Keeps Militarizing the South China Sea secretary. It now became

•Trump’s Pentagon Pick Holds Dimmer View on Russia

even clearer to me why the
Marines assign an
•Mattis Exit Stokes Concerns About Volatility
expanded reading list to
everyone promoted to a
n
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS e

What can U.S. leaders do to overcome today’s internal divisions? Join the conversation below.

w rank: That reading gives historical depth that lights the path ahead. Books like the “Personal
Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant,” “Sherman” by B.H. Liddell Hart and Field Marshal William Slim’s
“Defeat Into Victory” illustrated that we could always develop options no matter how
worrisome the situation. Slowly but surely, we learned there was nothing new under the sun:
Properly informed, we weren’t victims—we could always create options.

Fate, Providence or the chance assignments of a military career had me as ready as I could be
when tapped on the shoulder. Without arrogance or ignorance, I could answer yes when asked
to serve one more time.

When I served as Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, a new post created in 2002 to
help streamline and reform NATO’s command structure, I served with a brilliant admiral from a
European nation. He looked and acted every inch the forceful leader. Too forceful: He yelled,
dressing officers down in front of others, and publicly mocked reports that he considered
shallow instead of clarifying what he wanted. He was harsh and inconsiderate, and his
subordinates were fearful.

I called in the admiral and carefully explained why I disapproved of his leadership. “Your staff
resents you,” I said. “You’re disappointed in their input. OK. But your criticism makes that
input worse, not better. You’re going the wrong way. You cannot allow your passion for
excellence to destroy your compassion for them as human beings.” This was a point I had
always driven home to my subordinates.

“Change your leadership style,” I continued. “Coach and encourage; don’t berate, least of all in
public.”

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But he soon reverted to demeaning his subordinates. I shouldn’t have been surprised. When for
decades you have been rewarded and promoted, it’s difficult to break the habits you’ve
acquired, regardless of how they may have worked in another setting. Finally, I told him to go
home.

An oft-spoken admonition in
When you’re going to a gunfight, bring all your friends with guns.
the Marines is this: When
you’re going to a gunfight,
bring all your friends with guns. Having fought many times in coalitions, I believe that we need
every ally we can bring to the fight. From imaginative military solutions to their country’s vote
in the U.N., the more allies the better. I have never been on a crowded battlefield, and there is
always room for those who want to be there alongside us.

A wise leader must deal with reality and state what he intends, and what level of commitment
he is willing to invest in achieving that end. He then has to trust that his subordinates know
how to carry that out. Wise leadership requires collaboration; otherwise, it will lead to failure.

President Trump and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis (left) in the Cabinet Room at the White House, Oct. 23, 2018. PHOTO:
LEAH MILLIS REUTERS

Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our
people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering. A polemicist’s role is
not sufficient for a leader. A leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for
those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed. Returning to a strategic stance that
includes the interests of as many nations as we can make common cause with, we can better
deal with this imperfect world we occupy together. Absent this, we will occupy an increasingly
lonely position, one that puts us at increasing risk in the world.

It never dawned on me that I would serve again in a government post after retiring from active
duty. But the phone call came, and on a Saturday morning in late 2017, I walked into the

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secretary of defense’s office, which I had first entered as a colonel on staff 20 years earlier.
Using every skill I had learned during my decades as a Marine, I did as well as I could for as long
as I could. When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our
allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving
alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution.

Unlike in the past, where we were

We all know that we’re better than our current politics.
unified and drew in allies, currently our
own commons seems to be breaking
apart. What concerns me most as a military man is not our external adversaries; it is our
internal divisiveness. We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by
emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future, instead of rediscovering our common
ground and finding solutions.

All Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment—and one that can be
reversed. We all know that we’re better than our current politics. Tribalism must not be
allowed to destroy our experiment.

Toward the end of the Marjah, Afghanistan, battle in 2010, I encountered a Marine and a Navy
corpsman, both sopping wet, having just cooled off by relaxing in the adjacent irrigation ditch. I
gave them my usual: “How’s it going, young men?”

“Living the dream, sir!” the Marine shouted. “No Maserati, no problem,” the sailor added with a
smile.

Their nonchalance and good cheer, even as they lived one day at a time under austere
conditions, reminded me how unimportant are many of the things back home that can divide us
if we let them.

On each of our coins is inscribed America’s de facto motto, “E Pluribus Unum”—from many,
one. For our experiment in democracy to survive, we must live that motto.

—Gen. Mattis served as secretary of defense during the Trump administration and served in the
U.S. Marine Corps for more than four decades. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book
“Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead,” co-authored with Bing West, which will be published Sept.
3 by Random House.

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